Help! Old Kitten Hissing At New Kitten!

[Elizabethriki]

Hi everyone. So we’ve had our male kitten Albus since he was 6 weeks old. He’s now 18 weeks old (4 months) and we decided to get him a companion while he’s still young. We got a female kitten, Trixie, who is 5 months old today and were told to take it slow but that kittens are much easier to get along since they’re still young so we should be able to get them introduced in a few days. We have been doing scent exchanges for about 10 hours with no bad reaction from Albus. He just smelled her blanket and toy a lot and didn’t care much for playing with the toy (FYI, he’s super playful with almost any toy). Since he didn’t seem to have a bad reaction to Trixie’s blanket, we decided to let them smell each other through the bottom of the bathroom door and Albus began hissing and growling right away. We’ve heard him hiss before when he’s gotten really scared but never growl! Trixie just got scared and seemed to be alert. Towards the end, he kept flipping around and was showing me his belly, stopped hissing, and began doing this noise he sometimes makes when he is asleep and wakes up a bit to stretch. It sounds like a low growl, slight meow. I’m now REALLY nervous that we might be doing something wrong. Is this behavior normal? Are we doing something wrong? Should we do something differently? Does him showing his belly in the end mean something? Any advice would help.

FYI: both kittens are fixed. We got Albus fixed about a month ago and Trixie’s foster mom got her fixed about a month and a half ago. Also Albus hasn’t really been around cats since we got him but is VERY socialized with people. Any person he meets he sniffs right away and wants them to pet him. Trixie on the other hand hasn’t been around many people but is friendly with people and has been around other cats since she’s been with her foster mom (about a month and a half).

 

[jen]

Cats are vocal animals. They hiss and growl and meow and puff up to communicate and to warn each other of their presence. All he is doing is communicating that he isn't thrilled about sharing his space with an intruder, especially one he can't even see. Gotta give them time, and expect them to vocalize. That is normal and you HAVE to let it happen naturally without scolding them for it. Plus how he reacts to this cat might not be how he reacts to another cat, or person, or toy, etc etc.

The only time to really intervene is if you try this again and Albus constantly charges her, scares, her keeps her from eating or drinking, or flat out jumps her with claws and teeth out.

Once they are introduced more you are likely going to see really rough play, puffing up, hissing, growling in PLAY even, so keep calm and let them interact and establish dominance and everything cats do. Just expect all this to happen.

 

[Elizabethriki]

Hi again Jen! Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately we had to take Trixie back to the shelter this morning for her foster mom to pick her up. She was yowling/meowing loudly all night and when we let her into the room with us, she was pouncing and jumping really hard from our nightstands and bed (she decided 2am was a good time to play). The only time she would stop howling/meowing was when we would be paying attention to her and while she was playing and we would watch her. Other than that she wouldn’t stop and our neighbors complained to us early in the morning. We’ve never had any issues with any of our neighbors. Everyone just kind of minds their own business. The whole apartment is relatively quiet despite 3 out of 6 of us having pets with the other 2 being 2 dogs each. We’re technically not supposed to have pets but the manager has told us that as long as they are peaceful, not mess up the apartment, and not make too much noise, the landlord will be ok with it. We decided not to risk it and end up having to get rid of our Albus or have to move because of this so we made the decision to take her back.

 

[danteshuman]

I would still consider getting a kitten (I tend to adopt a younger kitten not older.) In my opinion I like to neuter/spay one cat/kitten and teach them to let me sleep, then adopt a second kitten. I'm sorry she didn't work out. It sounds like she was used to being the only cat. I would consider adopting another kitten after a month or so. Just get a little kitten and be sure to teach your current kitten to let you sleep in the meantime.
*He is so little at 18 weeks old that if you see a kitten at 3 months old, I would go ahead and adopt one, today. Just be prepared for double the fun & double the mayhem! There are many happy only cats out there, lord knows Salem was perfectly happy as an only cat (I adopted him at 4.5 months old.) He still looks at me like he is asking if I can give his brother back... 12 years later

 

[Elizabethriki]

Oh our current kitten typically lets us sleep at night. We rescued him at 6 weeks and we used to keep him in a large cage (4ft x 5 ft) overnight and started to let him roam around at night every other night for about a week. After that, he only kept bugging us at night about 3x so the next night we put him in the cage and eventually he learned not to but us. Now he only bugs us in the morning when we start waking up and can hear us chattering....anyways, my cousin has been fostering here and there and might be getting a new litter soon so she will be keeping an eye on a kitty for us and maybe this time we can introduce them at her house since he seems to do better with animals outside of our house than inside of our house.